A survey of Restoration poetry, from the forms in which it was disseminated to studies of important texts.
This book explores the complex ways in which authors, publishers, and readers contributed to the making of Restoration poetry. The essays in Part I map some principal aspects of Restoration poetic culture: how poetic canons were established through both print and manuscript; how censorship operated within the manuscript transmission of erotic and politically sensitive poems; the poetic functions of authorial anonymity; the work of allusion and intertextualreference; the translation and adaptation of classical poetry; and the poetic representations of Charles II. Part II turns to individual poets, and charts the making of Dryden’s canon; the ways in which
Mac Flecknoe operates through intertextual allusions; the relationship of the variant texts of Marvell’s ‘To his Coy Mistress’; and the treatment of Rochester’s canon and text by his modern editors. The discussions are complemented by illustrationsdrawn from both printed books and manuscripts.
PAUL HAMMOND is Professor of Seventeenth-Century Literature at the University of Leeds.